Shortly after the release of PT, Kojima posted this photo to his twitter account stating that he was scouting for a project. The Phantom Pain was late in its development cycle at the time, so it's fair assumption that the scouting was directly related to Silent Hills.

The photo itself is of Gardur, Iceland. Various photos available through Google images show black sand beaches similar to what is seen in the recent trailer for Death Stranding. Although it's purely speculation at this point, I believe there is a connection to Silent Hills' concepts and development beyond the obvious inclusions of Reedus, etc. . Maybe not helpful in discerning the game's subject matter, but very interesting nonetheless.

I think Reedus' character has no traditional belly button. It seems as if he might've been feeding what could've been his son through an artificial umbilical cord, but it might also imply that Reedus' character himself might've been an artificially re-repoduced human. (Like grown in a lab or something.)

Interestingly, wasn't there some reference in P.T. about a father keeping an umbilical cord, or was that a Silent Hill reference? Obviously the child in the sink is a big flag.

Maybe that MonWeek Conspiracy video with Fungo may not be so crazy after all...

Quote:

"...The mother, who he shot in the stomach, was pregnant at the time. Police arriving on-scene after neighbors called 911 found the father in his car, listening to the radio. Several days before the murders, neighbors say they heard the father repeating a sequence of numbers in a loud voice. They said it was like he was chanting some strange spell. There was another family shot to death in the same state last month, and in December last year, a man used a rifle and meat cleaver to murder his entire family. In each case, the perpretrators were fathers. State police say the string of domestic homicides appears unrelated, though it could be part of a larger trend, such as employment, childcare, and other social issues facing the average family.After killing his family, the father hung himself with a garden hose they had in the garage.Note: You can hear a muffled voice saying "umbilical cord" instead of "garden hose" in the background."

That photo (in relation to Silent Hill) gives me the chills. The isolation is palpable.

And I still have my fingers crossed for Del Toro jumping on board. His involvement was one the most exciting aspects of Silent Hills to me, as his aesthetic would have been an excellent fit for the franchise.

I'm still curious what connections (if any) Death Stranding will have to their original idea. To completely lose such an interesting premise is still hard for me to accept.

_________________Don stepped outside... It feels good to be alone... He wished he was drunk...

Although Kojima said he isn't making a horror game and that he's done with horror, I don't think there's anything stopping him from making a horror game other than his willingness. I'll take him at his word that he's done with horror unless proven to the contrary. SIE actually owns the trademark for Death Stranding, if I recall correctly, so Konami would have to contend with them first in all likelihood.

Edit: Kojima recently posted a couple of tweets of himself with Junji Ito at KojiPro. Kojima's assistant Ayako posted another image of Kojima with Ito. Seems they were in some kind of meeting?